head to head · open source
Authentik vs pocket-id
Authentik has 26,209 GitHub stars, 2,099 forks, 1,074 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pocket-id has 9,906 stars, 348 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Authentik leads on adoption by 165% (26,209 vs 9,906 stars). Authentik is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; pocket-id is written in Go under BSD-2-Clause. Authentik has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pocket-id 4%. Authentik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (oidc), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Authentik | pocket-id | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | Custom / other | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 348 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Authentik if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pocket-id if
- You want the pocket-id feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pocket-id fits your workflow better
About Authentik
What is authentik? authentik is an open source Identity Provider (IdP) for modern SSO. It supports SAML, OAuth2/OIDC, LDAP, RADIUS, and more, designed for self hosting from small labs to large production clusters. Our enterprise offering is available for organizations to securely replace existing IdPs such as Okta, Auth0, Entra ID, and Ping Identity for robust, large scale identity management. Installation Docker Compose: recommended for small/test setups. See the documentation. Kubernetes (Helm Chart): recommended for larger setups. See the documentation and the Helm chart repository. AWS CloudFormation: deploy…
read the full Authentik overview →
About pocket-id
Pocket ID Pocket ID is an easy to use OpenID Connect Certified™ and OAuth 2.0 provider that lets users sign in to your applications with passkeys. → Try out the Demo The goal of Pocket ID is to be a simple and easy to use. There are other self hosted OIDC and OAuth 2.0 providers like Keycloak or ORY Hydra but they are often too complex for simple use cases. Additionally, what makes Pocket ID special is that it only supports passkey authentication, which means you don’t need a password. Some people might not like this idea at first, but I believe passkeys are the future, and once you try them, you’ll love them…
read the full pocket-id overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Authentik or pocket-id more popular?
Authentik has 26,209 GitHub stars and pocket-id has 9,906. Authentik has the larger community by that measure.
Are Authentik and pocket-id free?
Both are open source. Authentik has no licence declared in this registry, and pocket-id is licensed under BSD-2-Clause. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Authentik and pocket-id?
Authentik is written in Python and pocket-id in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Authentik or pocket-id?
Choose Authentik if you want the larger community (26,209 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose pocket-id if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.